Hugh Despenser the Younger: The Most Hated Briton of the Fourteenth Century

"…as a thief therefore you shall be hanged; as a traitor…you shall be drawn and quartered, and your quarters dispersed throughout the kingdom; and as you were outlawed, by our Lord the King and by general consent, and have come back to the court…you shall be beheaded; and because at all times you have been disloyal and a formenter of strife between our Lord the King and our most noble Lady the Queen…you shall be disembowelled, and after that you bowels shall be burned. Confess yourself a traitor and a renegade! And so go to meet your doom. Traitor! Evildoer!! and Convicted!!!"

This was the sentence handed down to Hugh Despenser the Younger in 1326 after a hasty trial. A man responsible for a civil war and the downfall of a king. Today we found out where he went wrong!